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Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

I've read from a few posters that Johannus Opus samples are shorter than samples used in the Sweelinck and Rembrandt. Then I ran across the following statement within a Johannus FAQ:</p>

" Q: Do the less expensive models have cheaper technology or materials?

A:
No. In all cabinetry, from Opus to Monarke, Johannus uses only one
grade of wood, one type of adhesive and lacquer, and it's all crafted
on the same equipment by the same craftsmen. As for the rest, they only
use one keyboard, one drawknob or rockertab design, one grade of wire
and all contacts are gold-plated. <u>They use the same samples and the
same reproduction technology in all organs, it's just that the more
expensive models have more of everything. </u>As the instrument gets more
expensive, the player has more resources to draw from – more stops,
more memory, more channels, and so on. But there is never a reduction
in quality of materials."</p>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

Alvin,</p>

Have you ever come across this statement- "don't believe everything you read"? Remember this is coming from a dealer who sells the Johannus brand. By the way, this statement and the whole FAQ section hasn't changed in at least 5 or 6 years.</p>

Johannus has 4 or 5 lines of organs. If they were truly "all the same", would there be any need for marketing all those lines? Would it not add up to confuse the potential buyer? Truth is there are differences, and add up to quite a difference in at least the final sound of the instrument.</p>

Here is what I do know,</p>

1) furniture is pretty much the the "quality" in at least the Opus, Sweelink, and Rembrandt. The Monarke are or can be done in a highly individual manner, and so can be quite different from standard production models
</p>

2) basic technology, such as control system, tone generation platform are the same</p>

3)# of amps, power of amps, speakers, vary from line to line, and also from situation to situation. In other words there are various solutions possible even within lines. Basic quality is likely to be similar throughout.</p>

4) about samples, here is what I have been told, and my ears tell me this is so,</p>

- Opus has fewer samples per stop, and are also quite short</p>

- Sweelink has more samples per stop and also longer</p>

- Rembrandt has samples somewhat like Sweelink, but on some stops more, and in some cases samples again are longer. Mixtures, at least some of them are independent rank</p>

- Monarke is said to have long samples, 1 for every rank throughout the organ. Monarke also has more audio channels per stop than the lower lines.</p>

So, what is this dealer saying? My guess is he using classic advert bs. He probably means all Johannus organ lines, have samples that are based on the same root samples (pipe recordings). It is just that they are snipped and looped differently. I have some older literature which mentions long loop samples only on the Sweelink and Rembrandt lines. You can tell though that they all sound like Johannus organs, in other words they have the Johannus tonal signature to them.
</p>

Be that as it may, I can tell you that the Opus 37 to me sounded a whole lot better than an Opus 30 from 5 or 6 years ago. I would assume the sampling or resultant samples is better, but also that the audio system may be better. So they have really improved their product.</p>

AV </p>

P.S. I have never heard a Monarke, but understand they sound much more pipe like in basic tone as well as ensemble.
</p>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

Alvin,</P>

To expand on arie's response, here is a Q&amp;A between me and my dealer:
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<UL type=disc>
<LI><SPAN>Does the number of DACs coincide with the number of sound cards, say with a ratio of 2/1? </SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>The R397 has 52 <SPAN class=il>DAC</SPAN>'s, so does that mean there are 26 sound cards? </SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>And the Sweelinck 37 has 40 DACs (20 sound cards?) with basically the same number of stops, so does that mean that there are more Sweelinck stops assigned to each sound card?</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Does this reflect more shared samples on the Sweelinck, shorter samples, or both, or something else entirely?</SPAN></LI>[/list]
<P mce_keep="true"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125)">In fact, there are 4 DACs per sound card, so the R397 has 14 cards and the Sw37 has 10. The sound cards all have the same amount of memory, so yes, this means that the samples are stretched further and/or are shorter in the Sw37 than in the R397. As I mentioned earlier, the sample quality gets incrementally better the higher up the line you go with Johannus. In the Monarkes, they usually have only 1 or 2 voices per card.</SPAN></P>

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125)">This also shows one of the ways that Johannus keeps costs low. By using the same sound cards in all of their models, from the least expensive to the top of the line, they are able to build the cards in very high volumes and take advantage of the economies of scale. They only become differentiated in final production when the samples are programmed into them.</SPAN></P>

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125)">One other note. Since the samples are created by multiple DACs and combined in the analog world, they are able to keep the dynamic range higher than if all of the samples were combined digitally. Contrary to marketing hype, analog audio is capable of higher dynamic range than digital, so Johannus takes advantage of this to keep the sound rich. And by using multiple amplifiers and speakers, they are able to keep it that way. The ratio of voices per channel is also something that you will see decrease in Johannus organs as you go up the line.</SPAN></P></BLOCKQUOTE>

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125)">So the Opus 37 has 42 stops spread over 5 sound cards (8.4/1) the Sweelinck 37 has 64 stops spread over 10 sound cards (6.4/1) and the Rembrandt 397 has 70 stops spread over 14 sound cards (5.0/1). Since each card has the same amount of memory, there have to be fewer samples or shorter samples as the ratio increases.</SPAN></P>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

I've never heard an Opus 37, .... will you be doing any tonal work on it ??? I'd be curious about how it stacks up to the other Johannus models you have worked with.</p>

Thanks,</p>

Phil
</p>

[/quote]</p>

Phil,</p>

I don't have much experience with Johannus. I am a organ servicer, and I used to work for a company building custom and semi-custom organs, and laterly they were Ahlborn-Galanti dealers.</p>

Several years ago, I went to a Johannus dealer and tried out various models. I don't know if they were up to date models them, but remembered that the Sweelink and the Rembrandt sounded vastly better than an Opus 30 I tried there. Mind you this Opus organ had only internal speakers. I thought this Opus organ sounded very poor.</p>

Earlier this year I was contacted by Johannus about installing a special Johannus in a worship space, and I subsequently did install it. This organ is said to be somewhere in-between a Sweelink and a Rembrandt. It all worked and sounded reasonable. Voicing it was easy, and it did not need much of that.</p>

About the Opus 37, I must say it was a well sorted instrument. I can see why people like it. However, to me the samples were obviously short. This instrument sounded much better than the earlier Opus 30, so Johannus must be improving on them. I tried this organ side by side with an A-G 3000, and the A-G sounded far more pipe-like. The Johannus maybe had a more forgiving sound to it, which non-pipe purists kind of like.</p>

So no, the Opus does not sound as good as the higher end lines, but is quite nice all the same. Certainly would make a good practice instrument. With this sale that Johannus has on, I think they have sold a lot of them.</p>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

Guys...Thanks for that great explanation about sample lengths as determined by ratio of stops per sound card! I could really wrap my head around that.[] The FAQ the dealer has on the website is a "slight of hand" when it comes to sample lengths. Thanks!</p>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

[quote user="arie v"]

Alvin,</p>

Just wondering, if you want to use a Johannus organ console to control Hauptwerk, no doubt the keyboards and expression will work. But will the stops work. I mean by this, is there an easy way to local off the Johannus stops individually, and then bring them on again with the flip of a switch? Also, can the pistons be set to work on Hauptwerk?</p>

Curious mind wants to know.</p>

I got conscripted to deliver an Opus 37 last week. So I know at least what the organ looks like.</p>

AV
</p>

[/quote]</p>

Arie,</p>

I'm going to venture another GUESS in response to the second part of your question.</p>

I've been doing a little digging and found that it might be possible to use Johannus console pistons with Hauptwerk. I discovered that thumb piston data are transmitted and recognized via MIDI "system exclusive" commands. Transmitting or receiving the following hexadecimal code (recognized only by Johannus products) can be used to send [and receive???] thumb piston data:</p>

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 XX F7 </p>

The XX in the above command would be changed to:</p>

7F - for Cancel or '0' piston</p>

00 - for PP thumb piston
</p>

01 - for P thumb piston
</p>

02 - for MP thumb piston</p>

and so on. These System Exclusive commands are transmitted from the MOD MIDI socket on the console. Of course, the Hauptwerk software would have to be configured to:</p><ul>[*] recognize the hexadecimal commands sent from the Johannus console and attach them to the pistons of the Hauptwerk virtual organ and be[*]configured to transmit system exclusive commands to the Johannus console when a thumb piston is pressed on the Hauptwerk virtual organ.[/list]

I got the above idea by reffering to page 73 of a "2003 Johannus User's Manual" available here: </p>

The manual leads me to believe the numbered pistons are associated with system exclusive MIDI commands as well. There may be a MIDI command scan tool in HW (I'll have to dig further to verify that), or the scan tool may be within another peice of software. The scan tool can provide another way to determine if what MIDI data the Johannus console is transmitting (if any) when a button or switch is activated. </p>

Check the 2009 user's manual coming with your new organ[] to verify the system exclusive commands for they could have changed within the last six years.
</p>

Of course this is a GUESS, that I will try out when my Opus 37 arrives. Again, I hope this gives you and others a starting point idea to work with the pistons.</p>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

Does anyone know if my Viscount organ (Domus Opera -1991) has system exclusive commands? I have channels 1, 2 &amp; 4 for the manuals and pedals. But no ability to use the stops, pistons or swell pedal.</p>

Re: Johannus Half-Off Sale .... Now What ???

If you have a PC running Windows, get an appropriate MIDI adaptor (such as USB from Roland or M-Audio) and midi-ox (www.midiox.com). This will allow you to capture and analyze all the MIDI output data generated by each console function.</p>